MYST #3 Birdman

  I was somewhat concerned about watching Birdman.  I have this thing where I have heard nothing but praise for a movie for the longest time, and then I finally saw it and was disappointed because it seemed like I was being promised something more.  This is what has kept me from truly loving films that everybody else loved like Moonrise Kingdom.  But I needed a movie to base my third post around and this was the first movie I saw on demand, so I just rented it without really thinking about it.  That was on Friday night, and I've been doing nothing but thinking about it ever since.  I've been thinking about it so much because I've rewatched it so many times over the weekend and it has so many themes and stories and subtexts that I don't really know how to explain what it's really about.  What I can tell you is that ii is one of the most clever movies I've seen in a while, and has everything I would want to see in a movie.

  It's a rise and fall story.  It's about the short attention span of the media.  It's about art vs. commercial trash.  It's about our desire to be loved and respected by everyone.  It's about criticism.  It parodies big-budget blockbuster superhero movies.  It parodies snobbish, pretentious art.  It's about letting go of our past.  It's about becoming old and irrelevant.  It's a father-daughter story.  It's about resurrection.  It has action, it has comedy, it has drama.  LOTS OF DRAMA!!!!  It has yelling and punching and screaming and punching.  It also has punching.  It has drumming.  LOTS OF DRUMMING!!!  It's about Michael Keaton playing a washed up actor who once played a popular superhero named Birdman, much like how Michael Keaton is a washed up actor who once played a popular superhero named Batman.  It has Edward Norton playing someone who is a great actor but is also an a**hole, much like in real life.  It has Emma Stone playing a girl who is a drug/alcohol addict, much like someone who Emma Stone bears a striking resemblance to...Lindsay Lohan.  The whole movie is in one shot (or at least looks like it).  It has a narrator with a badass voice.  It's about love.  It's about loss.  It's about being more focused on your cell phones than your life.  It's about being more focused on your life than your friends and family.  It's about appearance vs. reality.  It's about popularity vs. artistic integrity.  IT'S ABOUT EVERYTHING!

  The basic story is about Riggan Thompson (Michael Keaton) who wants to make a comeback in his career by writing, directing, and starring in a Broadway play.  When he intentionally injures an actor who he thinks is doing poorly, he hires an actor named Mike Shiner (Edward Norton), who quickly begins to interfere with the production and ruin Riggan's plans, even to the point of seducing Riggan's daughter (Emma Stone), attempting to rape the lead actress (Naomi Watts) onstage, and drinking real alcohol on stage.  And that's the least of Riggan's problems.  He also has to deal with the fact that he has a voice in his head continuously taunting and manipulating him.

  Some people have criticised this film for being based around the gimmick of seeming like it's all in one shot, and I have to respectfully disagree.  Director Alejandro G. Inarittu (Amores Perros, 21 Grams, Babel, Biutiful) does this in order to give the illusion that you are watching a stage play, and it actually gives you more connection to the characters and their predicaments as a result.  And while the casting of Keaton and Norton in their roles can be seen as a one-note joke that takes a jab at their real-lives, I find that their characters are so fascinating that even if different actors were given the roles, I wouldn't care, because I would still be so invested.  And while apparantly Inarittu made this movie to comment on the overabundance of superhero movies, despite the fact that I have grown up reading comic books and watching the blockbusters the filmmakers apparantly dislike so much, I understand the point he is trying to make, and it is fun to witness.

  What I also love about this movie is how it manages to tackle all of these subjects, and yet it still manages to be entertaining the entire runtime.  I was never bored or confused, despite this being a very strange film and being about so many different things.  I wish I had enough money to purchase this on blu-ray, just so I could watch it even more times, because I have a feeling that there are still a great many things that I can discover and analyze.

I give Birdman 10 out of 10 prosthetic noses (you'll know what I mean when you see it)